Everyone's had 'that one phase' growing up that they're embarrassed about. It could be anything: Your short lived emo phase, that time you decided that polo shirts were the only thing you'd wear ever, etc.

We've all gotten past them, and have all promised to never revisit them...

But there's something about being dressed like a sad mime, 'Black Parade' full blast in the speakers, going 90 mph on winding roads with your best friends, high off your asses that makes you remember the good bits.

Alrighty, for those of you who aren't in the know, I've been spending the winter break here in the home country, aka the Philippines. All good fun really. Family, food, animals, adventures, etc. Then there's all the freaky shit. I won't delve to far into the local mythology, since if you're reading this I assume you are on the internet and if you're on the internet then you can look up 'aswang' by yourself.

It's a pretty damn huge house, but half of it is under construction. Definitely the largest building in the barrio. And I mean it. You ever see in those movies taking place in South America, with ramshackle buildings made up of grass huts and/or cement, with little to no running water or electricity. Yeah. This is the sort of place where we're at. Have no idea why. The family's fairly powerful, and could've built the new mansion somewhere else.

First Incident

It's storming outside, and I'm seated right under the window, where my cot is. The windows are shaking from the wind, I'm using the shoddy internet connection to chat on Yahoo, and BAM!

"...What was that?"

My mother looks uncomfortable. "Just the wind."

"No, THAT's the wind," I gesture to the shaking windows. "What was THAT?"

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Yep, definitely something slamming into the window.

"It's probably a tree," my mother sez.

BAM! BAM! BAM! along the entire wall. "Pretty sure trees don't run back and forth slamming themselves into walls, ma," I sez back.

Well, not the second incident exactly. The first kinda repeated itself over the next couple of nights. It eventually became background noise to me. A pig was killed one night, though. And not like, 'oink oink, d-d-dat's all folks' kinda piggy. I mean a big ass, razorback, mean hog with tusks that've killed dogs in the past.

And it was torn to shreds.

That ain't the scary thing, though. Sometimes at night, instead of trying to bully it's way in, BAM'ing and WAAAGHH'ing, it'd just...tap on the glass, asking to be let in. Or I think it was asking to be let in, in whatever garbled imitation of human speech it could muster.

A mixture of several different dialects, guttural sounds, and some sort of high pitched chittering that is normally hilarious except for that time it was the exact right pitch to fuck with my Christmas hangover.

Something you should know about me when I'm scared: If I'm screamin, whooping, and hollering, I'm spooked but having a great time. But, when I'm REALLY scared, that fear turns into blinding rage, and that rage turns into batshit crazy and downright dickish. I seriously turn into some sort of magnificent bastard.

"*chirruping* Hayaan akong sa~!" scritch scritch scritch on the glass

"Fuck no, I am not letting you in this house."

Ma and Mamang, and my other relatives said not to acknowledge it. I'm stupid when I'm pissed.

I look at the month old Shepherd mix puppy curled up on my cot, the only dog on this property I actually like. She's gonna be mine when I come here for college next year. "Fuck you, stay away from my dog. She isn't delicious."

This thing is fucking with me. It's fucking with my dog. I snap.

I start screaming, going WAAGHH WAAGHH myself, punching and throwing myself into the walls, generally making an insane ass out of myself, flapping my arms and howling. Veruca, and yes I named her after that werewolf bitch from 'Buffy', thinks I'm playing and starts spinning and howling, too.

HISSSSSS

It scrambles up the wall and onto the roof. One, two, one, two stomps and it stops. I assume it's flown away, and I'm content to return to writing 'Buffy' fanfic, because what the hell else can I do in this sort of situation?

And then the screaming.

My four year old cousin comes rushing into the room, crying. Christ, I thought I was the only person at home? I guess the adults assumed, 'oh she's asleep and Starr's at home anyway' before frolicking off on their overnight trip to Lake Sebu. Fun fact, I wasn't allowed to go because last time I went as a baby, something apparently tried to eat me.

"Ateh(big sister)! There was a face in my window!"

Shit. It had climbed the roof, gone on to the other side of the house, and tried to go after the little cousin I wasn't even aware was home.

Can't say I know much about mysticism, but I grabbed a piece of chalk, said a prayer, recited the Shema( Shema yisreal adonai eloheinu adonai ehad, Hear oh Israel the Lord is our God the Lord is One) because that's the only Hebrew thing I have fully memorized and doesn't that just make me a bed Jew-stian?

Proceed to draw chalk lines around windows and doors, make cousin lie down, hold puppy close and stand watch for next 6 hours. Adults come home in the morning. "lol hay starr they were selling these small bottles of oil that are said to boil when demons are near. pretty cool. got it for you!"

On a supposedly haunted bridge where a young girl was recently found, raped, murdered, with a broken glass bottle shoved up her hoo-ha.

Push, push, push the bike, singing a song.

"..it means no worries, for the rest of your days!"

Round the corner, enter the bario. No lights. No sounds. Just wind.

"..Gotta make my way down to the bus STOP, I see my frieeends!"

*chittering* Oh god.

"...watch as I work my gypsy magic, eye of the newt and cinnamon"

*flapping of wings behind me*

"Shit."

Somehow make it home, run into the gate and chuck the damn bike wherever, run back over to lock the gate.

WAAAGHH right above me.

ohgod ohgod ohgod lock the gate lock the gate don't look up

WAAAAGHH

Veruca rushes over to greet me in the stupid manner that only puppies seem capable of, but her eyes are locked onto something above me.

WAAAGHH

Puppy whimpers, Starr decides that fuck the damn gate because apparantly all the scary shit can fly. I scoop up Veruca and run. On a good day I'm pretty quick, but for that moment, I was half gazelle half coyote. ZOOM, into the house.

My cousin Kyan pokes his head outta the kitchen. "You're home."

"Gah!"

"Didja lock the gate?"

Shake my head "Nuuuuuu."

"Why not?"

"S-scary thing outside!"

"OMG you big baby." Goes outside. I see him make it halfway to the gate.

WAAAGHH

Sees him turn heel and run back into house. Mamang wakes up.

"What's all this noise?!"

Both of us: "Scary thiinng!!"

Veruca: Wowowowowow

Grandma pulls a FUCKING MACHETE out from under the couch. Hands it to me. "Make sure nothing eats your cousin."

Hands Kean a bowl of salt. "You know what to do."

Grabs a big ass stick for herself. Kean and I go around the house. He looks miserable and honestly looks like he doesn't wanna be out here. I guess I do too. He's sprinkling salt around the house, and I'm standing around like a crazy person with the giant knife.

From the other side of the house where grandma is: WHAM! The sound of grandma's stick hitting flesh.

Now, she's screaming this in Filippino, so I'm gonna stranslate the best I can:

"Son of a bitch! This is my house! Coming here and scaring my grandkids, in my house! You like eating people? Well I eat demons! Get out of here!"

All while beating whatever it was with a stick. Then she came around and dragged us back into the house.

To tell you the truth, I wanna know more about the Victorian era lesbian lizard woman and her human, maid girlfriend who fight crime with samurai swords in Victorian era London. I know they're minor characters, but she ate Jack the Ripper. I want a wacky spinoff of these two :(

Tags:

So some folks call the cops on some guy because they thought he was gonna start a fire, and when the cops got there, they found him hiding on the couch, wielding a sword. Good lord, people. We live in a world very few can imagine.

You know, you just gotta love all those angsty Potter fics about the War and what a huge impact it's made, all those fics that seem to strive on House cliches, Racism and species-ism and all that jazz. And please, don't even get me started on the millions of AU high school fics out there.

You know what I want to see for once?

20-40 years after the war, close enough for people to remember it, long enough that there's a generation not made up of Potter-Weasely-Granger-etc kids. I want to see a batch of Hogwarts kids who are aware of the War, who know people who have fought in it, know what it did for the wizarding world, and not give a shit. Similar to the way modern kids are distanced from previous wars we've had. It's not their war, they have no driving force in their lives other than to graduate Hogwarts. I don't want to see the old Brave, Ambitious, Smart, and Loyal, either.

You know whose stories I want to hear?

The Keeper on the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, biggest tool and douchebag in the universe.

The Slytherin 4th year with a passion for muggle music and civil rights.

The Ravenclaw with surprisingly good reflexes and a knack for always getting caught in trouble.

The typical, fun-loving Stupid Fucking Gryffin-dork who just might be a teeny bit racist.

...But I haven't written anything in the HP fandom for years, and have never done OC's. What am I supposed to do with a school full of them?